We have only seen the beginning of this so far. I don't know what we can even know enough of where we are headed to begin to decide what is ethical.
We routinely perform amputations of healthy tissues for "cosmetic" and social reasons that don't raise any complaints. Extra digits. Vestigial tails. Extra limbs. We routinely cut off healthy flesh for religious reasons. Breast reductions. Tummy tucks. Excess skin removal after weight loss. All kinds of operations to make people more aesthetically pleasing or conforming better to norms.
How long until we can replace severed limbs not just with some prosthetic device but create a functional replacement? Where do you draw the line? How about a body replacement for a quadriplegic? New limbs for people with birth defects?
How do you deal with enhanced abilities? We are already giving cochlear implants to deaf people. What happens when we can do really crazy things like give vision to the blind, add the ability to take up oxygen from water to replace breathing or fly?
I can't really even say what would be right or wrong about the whole transsexual issue if the operations and hormone treatments would actually work and give the patients a real change of sex instead of creating something that is neither and making a cosmetic approximation of the other sex without the functionality.
These questions have long been the fare of speculative fiction but we are reaching the technical capability to do them in fact.
Who gets to decide what is ethical? Governments don't have a very good track record for making ethical choices. Individuals don't have a great record of making the wisest choices either. Religions have their issues as well.
So many of these above questions was explored by Star Trek (before the series's went to hell) I have no point to make, other than to mention it as it struct me while reading your comment. Cheers
David, totally agree on the sticky question of who gets to decide what is ethical. But, respectfully, cochlear implants to help someone with hearing loss is a far cry from removing a healthy leg above the knee because someone thinks that leg is not a valid body part and it gives them nightmares. As a society, we must be able to have these conversations. As you say, we will soon have the technical capabilities to do many once-unthinkable things. But as Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) famously said in Jurassic Park: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”
There are people among the deaf who believe that cochlear implants are just as wrong as removing a healthy leg.
How about you have a congenital defect such as some types of dwarfism and you can remove both "healthy" legs and give them the ability to walk and look like normal people.
Do we condemn people to life as a sideshow freak just because they are ostensibly healthy?
There will always be crazy people. There are always going to be people ostracized by being different from the norm. We are going to have to ask really hard questions about society and its effects on people beyond just the putative health of a patient. There are no easy answers.
We have only seen the beginning of this so far. I don't know what we can even know enough of where we are headed to begin to decide what is ethical.
We routinely perform amputations of healthy tissues for "cosmetic" and social reasons that don't raise any complaints. Extra digits. Vestigial tails. Extra limbs. We routinely cut off healthy flesh for religious reasons. Breast reductions. Tummy tucks. Excess skin removal after weight loss. All kinds of operations to make people more aesthetically pleasing or conforming better to norms.
How long until we can replace severed limbs not just with some prosthetic device but create a functional replacement? Where do you draw the line? How about a body replacement for a quadriplegic? New limbs for people with birth defects?
How do you deal with enhanced abilities? We are already giving cochlear implants to deaf people. What happens when we can do really crazy things like give vision to the blind, add the ability to take up oxygen from water to replace breathing or fly?
I can't really even say what would be right or wrong about the whole transsexual issue if the operations and hormone treatments would actually work and give the patients a real change of sex instead of creating something that is neither and making a cosmetic approximation of the other sex without the functionality.
These questions have long been the fare of speculative fiction but we are reaching the technical capability to do them in fact.
Who gets to decide what is ethical? Governments don't have a very good track record for making ethical choices. Individuals don't have a great record of making the wisest choices either. Religions have their issues as well.
So many of these above questions was explored by Star Trek (before the series's went to hell) I have no point to make, other than to mention it as it struct me while reading your comment. Cheers
David, totally agree on the sticky question of who gets to decide what is ethical. But, respectfully, cochlear implants to help someone with hearing loss is a far cry from removing a healthy leg above the knee because someone thinks that leg is not a valid body part and it gives them nightmares. As a society, we must be able to have these conversations. As you say, we will soon have the technical capabilities to do many once-unthinkable things. But as Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) famously said in Jurassic Park: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”
There are people among the deaf who believe that cochlear implants are just as wrong as removing a healthy leg.
How about you have a congenital defect such as some types of dwarfism and you can remove both "healthy" legs and give them the ability to walk and look like normal people.
Do we condemn people to life as a sideshow freak just because they are ostensibly healthy?
There will always be crazy people. There are always going to be people ostracized by being different from the norm. We are going to have to ask really hard questions about society and its effects on people beyond just the putative health of a patient. There are no easy answers.
April fools day is over. This cant be our real world can it? If so, WTF
Enjoy the decline!